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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "st. louis"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Tue, 2 Dec 2014 09:33:00 PSTSt. Louis Police Claim It's Their 'First Amendment' Rights Not To Protect Football Players Who Supported ProtestorsMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141202/06363629292/st-louis-police-claim-its-their-first-amendment-rights-not-to-protect-football-players-who-supported-protestors.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141202/06363629292/st-louis-police-claim-its-their-first-amendment-rights-not-to-protect-football-players-who-supported-protestors.shtmlunconstitutional. They've also ignored the freedom of the press by repeatedly arresting journalists. And, remember, the local prosecutor has claimed that it was really all those people speaking out on social media who were to blame.

But it appears that the misunderstanding of the First Amendment has been taken to new, and even more ridiculous levels, following a brief show of support for the protestors by some players for the St. Louis Rams (the local NFL football franchise for you non-sportsball people). The Rams' wide receivers decided to all put their hands up -- the "hands up, don't shoot" gesture -- in support of Michael Brown and the protestors. It's a small, but meaningful gesture, showing they supported the protestors. And it shouldn't have been taken as anything more than that.

Instead, the St. Louis County police decided to respond... by suggesting that, because of this, the police would no longer protect the Rams. Here's the statement from the St. Louis Police Officers Association, quoting Jeff Roorda, the group's spokesperson, and a local politician (and ex-cop):

Roorda was incensed that the Rams and the NFL would tolerate such behavior and called it remarkably hypocritical. "All week long, the Rams and the NFL were on the phone with the St. Louis Police Department asking for assurances that the players and the fans would be kept safe from the violent protesters who had rioted, looted, and burned buildings in Ferguson. Our officers have been working 12 hour shifts for over a week, they had days off including Thanksgiving cancelled so that they could defend this community from those on the streets that perpetuate this myth that Michael Brown was executed by a brother police officer and then, as the players and their fans sit safely in their dome under the watchful protection of hundreds of St. Louis's finest, they take to the turf to call a now-exonerated officer a murderer, that is way out-of-bounds, to put it in football parlance," Roorda said.

"The SLPOA is calling for the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology. Roorda said he planned to speak to the NFL and the Rams to voice his organization's displeasure tomorrow. He also plans to reach out to other police organizations in St. Louis and around the country to enlist their input on what the appropriate response from law enforcement should be. Roorda warned, "I know that there are those that will say that these players are simply exercising their First Amendment rights. Well I've got news for people who think that way, cops have first amendment rights too, and we plan to exercise ours. I'd remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser's products. It's cops and the good people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it's not the NFL and the Rams, then it'll be cops and their supporters."

As many have noted, this certainly sounds like Roorda saying that it's the police's "First Amendment" rights to look the other way should any threats come to the team or the stadium. Update: In the comments, many are arguing that this comment does not reflect the intent not to protect the Rams any more, but rather just to boycott the merchandise offered by advertisers. That's a reasonable interpretation of the comments, though it still seems like he's implying something deeper -- actually involving police response. Note the claim that Roorda is going to speak to other police forces on an "appropriate response.." Separately, Roorda specifically calls out the fact that the Rams had asked police for extra protection, which certainly implies that police would not be as interested in doing so if players keep supporting protestors. It seems clear to me -- though, clearly not to others -- that Roorda is suggesting that if you state a position that the police disagree with, the police will look for ways to punish you. That's troubling.

Of course, that's not how the First Amendment actually works. It's quite the opposite. As Sally Jenkins at the Washington Post points out, the reality is exactly the opposite. The First Amendment protects the public from government officials (including the police) from taking actions based on expression of members of the public. If anything, Roorda's implied threat violates the First Amendment, suggesting that the government will punish people for their expression.

To begin with, the First Amendment only protects free speech against government action. That’s all it does. It doesn’t protect the St. Louis players from NFL owners, or league commissioners, or talk radio hosts who disagree with them. But it does protect them from the government. So the person in danger of abusing the First Amendment here is not the football player with the edgy gesture in a public stadium. Or the NFL owner who might want to tell them to shut up to protect advertising. It’s the governmental agent — like, say, a cop — who seeks to punish someone for expressing certain views.

Of course, the First Amendment now also protects the press digging into Jeff Roorda's own background and reporting what they find. Like the time he was reprimanded for trying "to 'cover' for another police officer filing a report that contained false statements." Or how he's against body cameras because they "sometimes don't reflect exactly what happened" and saying that "cameras have been bad for law enforcement" because "it causes second guessing by the courts and the media." Roorda has also defended an officer who a surveillance video showed was assaulting a handcuffed suspect, claiming the officer was "only defending himself" and saying he was doing "as he's trained to do."

In fact, we actually wrote about that last story and posted the video. You can see it here:

As we noted at the time, Roorda then lied about what's in the video. Roorda claimed that the officer was crouched down and the suspect started moving forward at him. But the video shows no such thing. Roorda further claimed that such videos should only be used when it helps the police view of things.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis County Police still seem to think that their First Amendment rights include pretending that the Rams apologized to them when they did not. The official Twitter feed and Facebook feed have both tried to argue that the Rams' COO, Kevin Demoff apologized to the police for the players' actions. On Facebook, they admit that Demoff didn't really apologize, but they still took it as an apology -- and then on Twitter tried to suggest that regretting "any offense that... officers may have taken" was actually an apology, based on their tortured reading of the dictionary:

Except, of course, most people recognize that a "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" is not really an apology, and here it appears that Demoff didn't even go that far. But, still, the St. Louis police want to claim it was an apology. And, I guess, they believe that's their First Amendment right to misrepresent what was actually said to them...

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]]>time for a lesson in the first amendmenthttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141202/06363629292Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:31:00 PSTJudge Finds St. Louis, MO's Red Light Camera Ordinance Invalid, Orders Halt Of Ticket EnforcementTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140213/10534026214/judge-finds-st-louis-mos-red-light-camera-ordinance-invalid-orders-halt-ticket-enforcement.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140213/10534026214/judge-finds-st-louis-mos-red-light-camera-ordinance-invalid-orders-halt-ticket-enforcement.shtml
Another red light camera company is in trouble, this time in St. Louis, MO, where a judge has just invalidated the city's red light camera ordinance. American Traffic Solutions (whose legal issues we've detailed here previously) has just had its camera system kicked to the curb as a result of some questionable moves it made during a recent lawsuit.

A St. Louis judge issued an order Tuesday that invalidates the city's red-light camera ordinance.

Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer wrote in the order that the city is prohibited from attempting to enforce the ordinance, sending violation notices, processing payments or sending collection letters relating to the tickets.

So what prompted Ohmer to shut down the system? Well, the tickets that were central to the case, which were over a year old at the point of the suit's filing, were dismissed almost immediately after the lawsuit was filed. Why the sudden show of largesse?

Those named in the suit — including the city, Mayor Francis Slay, Police Chief Sam Dotson and American Traffic Solutions Inc., which operates the cameras — had argued to dismiss it. Some of the defendants said the claims were moot because the tickets had been dismissed and that the petitioners lacked standing because they were not hurt by the ordinance.

"Here, it is clear that the City dismissed the Petitioners' tickets for the sole reason of avoiding an injunction in this matter, which the Court was poised to enter following the November hearing," he wrote.

Nearly every other claim made by the defendants was rebuffed by Judge Ohmer. The defendant's argued the plaintiffs had other venues to pursue their claims, like the municipal court, but a recent decision found that this court didn't provide adequate remedy for their claims. The defendants also argued the two filers didn't meet the requirements for a class action lawsuit. Judge Ohmer pointed out that the pair satisfied the "class action" stipulations because the ordinance affected other citizens.

The key element found to be in violation of state law is the fact that ATS' cameras (like all traffic enforcement cameras) presume the registered owner of the vehicle is the driver. This common aspect becomes even more problematic when the ticketed person has very limited avenues for recourse, which also unfortunately tends to be the case with automated enforcement. (This is also one of several problems with the recently introduced legislation that would allow Oklahoma police officers to issue traffic citations without leaving their vehicles.)

This combination of factors has led some traffic camera companies to basically convert their enforcement systems into purely voluntary operations. As the article notes, another Missouri city's council members recently voted unanimously to not enforce red light camera tickets. The camera system will be allowed to keep running and issuing citations but the city and the red light camera company won't pursue those who ignore tickets and will erase fines for anyone who contests their citation. Feeling safer yet, drivers?

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]]>sure-to-be-followed-shortly-by-handwringing-over-'lost'-revenuehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140213/10534026214Mon, 3 Feb 2014 05:39:00 PSTSt. Louis Police Officers Caught Running Possibly Politically-Motivated Background Checks On Police Board MembersTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140129/17412126044/st-louis-police-officers-caught-running-possibly-politically-motivated-background-checks-police-board-members.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140129/17412126044/st-louis-police-officers-caught-running-possibly-politically-motivated-background-checks-police-board-members.shtml
The problem with access to other people's personal data is that the potential for misuse is ever present. This is inherent in any system, whether it's the NSA's or a local politician's -- simply because humans are humans. The solution is accountability, not layers of bureaucratic control. That's what appears to be the focus in this story of alleged background check abuse by St. Louis County police officers, which is a good start.

Two St. Louis county police officers who were assigned to the detail of County Executive Charles Dooley have had their access to a criminal database suspended while an investigation over whether they were running unauthorized background checks, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The officers are specifically accused of running such a check on a former candidate for the police board, a body that’s theoretically supposed to supervise officers.

Internal affairs is now investigating the two officers in order to determine why it was accessed and if there was any additional abuse. County police chief Tom Fitch found himself questioning the motivations and actions of these two officers after they were inadvertently "outed" by a member of Dooley's office.

Questions first arose in October when Dooley’s chief of staff, Garry Earls, announced to the county council that a criminal background check into former police board candidate David Spence had come back clean, County Chief Tim Fitch said.

Fitch said he had questioned how the county administration would know that information because he didn’t believe it was his officers’ place to run the checks.

Officers running background checks on their own supervisors isn't a good idea, especially when it gives the unauthorized access the appearance of being politically motivated -- and possibly ordered by a county official. (This has been denied, of course.) Simply running a check for any other reason than "criminal justice" is itself illegal. And now Fitch is trying to figure out who else these officers have "checked out" in violation of policy.

At this point, the two officers must ask a supervisor to run names for them and have no access to the REGIS database. Until further details emerge, this at least prevents misuse by the two accused of unauthorized access. Whether there's evidence of more abuse remains to be seen. On the downside, Chief Fitch is being rather cagey with details on how much abuse has been uncovered.

Fitch would not say how many names the officers ran during their time assigned to Dooley’s detail, citing the ongoing internal investigation.

“The number (of names) isn’t important,” he said. “What’s important is why it was done and who asked them to do it.”

Understandably, some details need to be withheld during an ongoing investigation, but Fitch is a bit off when he says the total number isn't important. Checks that complied with department policy obviously don't matter, so it's only the total number that fall outside compliance that anyone's worried about. That number matters just as much as the "why." The "who" behind it matters as well, although the accused officers still had the option to say "no" if they were indeed asked to break the rules.

While it's refreshing to see a police chief unwilling to downplay his officers' misconduct, the intensity must be maintained not only through this investigation, but going forward to ensure incidents like these become rarer and rarer. And if it turns out that the database was frequently misused, the consequences need to be as severe as the abuse.